Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Songs of Labor and Other Poems
    Songs of Labor and Other Poems
    Songs of Labor and Other Poems
    Ebook81 pages43 minutes

    Songs of Labor and Other Poems

    By Helena Frank, Rose Pastor Stokes and Morris Rosenfeld

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    Songs of Labor and Other Poems

    Read more from Helena Frank

    Related to Songs of Labor and Other Poems

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2017

      Sep 11, 2017

      Isn’t that one of the purest goals of poetry—to justify our breaths? To recognize that we matter? The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Home

      Feb 25, 2019

      I once lived in a yellow little house. Each morning, birds convened and sang at my bedroom window. The gate was indigo and inside the garden all kinds of flowers rose to kiss the sunny walls. The yellow nest was filled with cherished books, colourful

      5 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      TELL ME A Story

      Mar 31, 2023

      TELL ME A Story
      21 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      1 The doctor makes a curving incision in the left topback of my skull andlifts the cap— “What areaam I here to work on?” But Ijust want to wish his son a Happy Birthday—It had been my aim, the reason I’dwalked right into this Doctor dream—In the morn

      11 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Dec 1, 2022

      You have to first Sit in the temple gloom In the mahogany chair & despair. The only glimmer In the temple (being the inlaid bits of The Mother-Of-Pearl shells On the tall, more than humanly tall Chair back, for these These too Are the reputed “Tears

      3 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      May 1, 2022

      Seven Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      What The Magpie Says

      Oct 16, 2022

      What The Magpie Says
      8 min read

    • Article

      From Cantares Mexicanos

      Dec 1, 2023

      Last night I dreamt that I was employed as a suicide prevention specialist in ancient Mesoamerica. We had no phones then so no hotline to call or anything like that. I held these gatherings going place to place for people to tell me their stories and

      3 min read

    • Article

      Collins Ferry Landing

      Jul 1, 2020

      for my father Only rivers bottom out like this.Only rivers bottom out with this kind of conviction.Not humans, or, at least, not humans asindisputably human as you were,trapped in consciousness’s surplus, exilic,animalized absurdity, writhing in its

      5 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2019

      before I was one I heard every soundas a sound that had never been heard,before I was one I saw every lightas a light separate from dark, colorhidden in a place I had not been.Before I was one I used feet to wakenin water, to pedal through air,hands

      1 min read

    • Article

      Moving Toward Happiness

      Mar 1, 2024

      Moving Toward Happiness
      5 min read

    • Article

      Helen Garner On Happiness: ‘It’s Taken Me 80 Years To Figure Out It’s Not A Tranquil, Sunlit Realm’

      Feb 4, 2023

      What is happiness, anyway? Does anybody know? It’s taken me 80 years to figure out that it’s not a tranquil, sunlit realm at the top of the ladder you’ve spent your whole life hauling yourself up, rung by rung. It’s more like the thing that Christian

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      On my phone’s half-broken screen, the news comes.It seeps through like a thousand swarms of butterflies, wings phantomand torched. Notre Dame cathedral is burning today. Al-Aqsa mosque is burningtomorrow. In another time, there will be a wedding, I s

      1 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Mary Szybist

      Sep 15, 2019

      Like an alarm I can’t shut off, the summer.Like air raid sirens stuck onthe world is burning, the world is burning& I can’t stop it. Can’t stop ash from the reddening sky falling dry onto grass, onto cloverlit purple at their tips. Mouth level.My che

      1 min read

    • Article

      Unlearnable Lessons on My Father’s Deathbed

      Mar 21, 2017

      I was at my father’s side much of the time in his final weeks, a witness to both the gifts and miseries of being near death. Nurses came and went, patient, long-suffering. They sat beside him for hours at a time, dousing spongy lollipops in water and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2020

      Pallets of bottled water on the back porchwere one evidence of apocalypseor the demise of the way of thingsor lazily written computer code backin the 80s, when I was a boyand the nightly news was just about all the doomwe had stomachs for, whenwere t

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 4, 2024

      Security confiscated the bracelet I’d slipped into my wallet but not the thin black sweater I wore as I walked out of Macy’s. The sweater still had its price tag and was so soft it soothed whoever was whispering “more, more” in my ears adorned with s

      4 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    Reviews for Songs of Labor and Other Poems

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Songs of Labor and Other Poems - Helena Frank

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of Labor and Other Poems by Morris Rosenfeld translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank

      Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

      This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.

      Please read the legal small print, and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.

      **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

      **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

      *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

      Title: Songs of Labor and Other Poems

      Author: Morris Rosenfeld translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank

      Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6859] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 2, 2003]

      Edition: 10

      Language: English

      *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS ***

      Produced by S Goodman, David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

      SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS BY MORRIS ROSENFELD

      Translated from the Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank

      Contents

      In the Factory

      My Boy

      The Nightingale to the Workman

      What is the World?

      Despair

      Whither?

      From Dawn to Dawn

      The Candle Seller

      The Pale Operator

      The Beggar Family

      A Millionaire

      September Melodies

      Depression

      The Canary

      Want and I

      The Phantom Vessel

      To my Misery

      O Long the Way

      To the Fortune Seeker

      My Youth

      In the Wilderness

      I've Often Laughed

      Again I Sing my Songs

      Liberty

      A Tree in the Ghetto

      The Cemetery Nightingale

      The Creation of Man

      Journalism

      Pen and Shears

      For Hire

      A Fellow Slave

      The Jewish May

      The Feast of Lights

      Chanukah Thoughts

      Sfere

      Measuring the Graves

      The First Bath of Ablution

      Atonement Evening Prayer

      Exit Holiday

      SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS

      In the Factory

      Oh, here in the shop the machines roar so wildly,

      That oft, unaware that I am, or have been,

      I sink and am lost in the terrible tumult;

      And void is my soul… I am but a machine.

      I work and I work and I work, never ceasing;

      Create and create things from morning till e'en;

      For what?—and for whom—Oh, I know not! Oh, ask not!

      Who ever has heard of a conscious machine?

      No, here is no feeling, no thought and no reason;

      This life-crushing labor has ever supprest

      The noblest and finest, the truest and richest,

      The deepest, the highest and humanly best.

      The seconds, the minutes, they pass out forever,

      They vanish, swift fleeting like straws in a gale.

      I drive the wheel madly as tho' to o'ertake them,—

      Give chase without wisdom, or wit, or avail.

      The clock in the workshop,—it rests not a moment;

      It points on, and ticks on: Eternity—Time;

      And once someone told me the clock had a meaning,—

      Its pointing and ticking had reason and rhyme.

      And this too he told me,—or had I been dreaming,—

      The clock wakened life in one, forces unseen,

      And something besides;… I forget what; Oh, ask not!

      I know not, I know not, I am a machine.

      At times, when I listen, I hear the clock plainly;—

      The reason of old—the old meaning—is gone!

      The

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1